Right, and I said as an american who's government does that to innocent people, I'm not ok with it. If I were the victim's family, I'd probably provide any help I could to people I thought would take revenge and encourage others to do so as well. "Look and see what they did to him."

Well, perhaps you can tell me of the wars won by hugs and sitting in a circle singing "Kumbaya".

Maybe you can first tell me about the wars won where one country goes as far out of its way to bankrupt itself murdering and torturing people with little or no strike back ability, but who use every attack as a rallying cry to bring on more soldiers. All that they have to do to win is keep the idea alive until we stop fighting, not because we choose to, but because we are broken. That's where its going. It's ignorant. We are literally creating the enemy by being there, this said without paying any respect to the fact that they have GREAT reasons to hate us already.

I don't know what the solution is. Radicalizing them by torturing people and destroying riflemen in the middle of another country and burning up their families is probably not going to help us in the end.

Looks like we could cut that in half and still defend ourselves pretty well if we weren't so busy torturing and bombing goat farmers.

I think it is nice that you think the US needs to nuke random Arab cities in response to a US backed (yeah, I went there) slaughter of our own civilians from 10 years ago, but its a bit excessive and not likely to produce the results you desire, other than radicalizing the 6 million Muslims living in the US. I guess we could put them in camps.

Conservative fear and hate is misplaced. We need to take some credit for why Arabs hate us and confront that directly. It wasn't randomly generated.

Pirate ships and crews from North Africa's Berber states of Morocco, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast), the last three of these being nominally governed by the Ottoman Empire, were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and enslaving or ransoming their crews provided the Muslim rulers of these nations with wealth and naval power. This had become enough of a problem that the Roman Catholic Trinitarian Order or Order of "Mathurins" had operated from France for centuries with the special mission of collecting and disbursing funds for the relief and ransom of prisoners of Mediterranean pirates.

The war stemmed from the Barbary pirates’ attacks upon American merchant shipping in an attempt to extort ransom for the lives of captured sailors, and ultimately tribute from the United States to avoid further attacks, much like their standard operating procedure with the various European states.[1] Before the Treaty of Paris, which granted America’s independence from Great Britain, American shipping was protected by France during the Revolutionary years under the Treaty of Alliance (1778–83). Although the treaty does not mention the Barbary States in name, it refers to common enemies between both the U.S. and France, which would include the Barbary States and pirates in general. As such, piracy against American shipping only began to occur after the end of the American Revolution, when the U.S. government lost its protection under the Treaty of Alliance.

*Snip*

In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Jefferson and Adams inquired as to "the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", to which Jefferson reported the ambassador's reply:

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. [12]

As far as the Barbary war thing, I can't tell you. I don't doubt that European aspirations had something to do with it in a historical context, but I don't know what the truth is about it. If I was an Iranian, I might want to make war on the US just to kill Donald Rumsfeld though. (;

I seriously doubt I'm going to make you believe what I believe about this. There is lots of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence; more than enough to convince me sense I don't think the people in power give a damn about the average person's well being.

I seriously doubt I'm going to make you believe what I believe about this. There is lots of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence; more than enough to convince me sense I don't think the people in power give a damn about the average person's well being.

Yeah, all those NYPD and Port Authority cops that lost friends and family don't know anything about investigation or evidence. Good thing you've put it all together for everyone.

I seriously doubt I'm going to make you believe what I believe about this. There is lots of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence; more than enough to convince me sense I don't think the people in power give a damn about the average person's well being.

Yeah, all those NYPD and Port Authority cops that lost friends and family don't know anything about investigation or evidence. Good thing you've put it all together for everyone.

I'm a believer in the court of law and if the tools at the top got away with it, well then good job. They must get up really early in the morning. What I believe about it will affect who and what I vote for. For one, I LOVE voting for people that I think will reduce our military budget. I'm not screaming for Bush's head on a platter. I know it isn't going to be pinned on him.

My point was that I don't like defining down concepts like torture. Water tricks in extreme, isolated situations, underwear photos gone bad, and sleep schedule changes are not comparable to gradual electrocutions or eyes gouged out. We are not morally equal to those who maximize the number of innocent casualties and kill themselves. And we did not plan or participate in the most gruesome attack ever against us - and keep it all a secret for 10 years. That doesn't make any sense.----

Are the Muslim militants in China internationally connected or supported?

The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is a small Islamic extremist group based in China's western Xinjiang Province. The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement is also called the East Turkistan Islamic Party, Allah Party or the East Turkistan National Revolution Association. Chinese sources state that it is one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations among "East Turkistan" terrorist forces. ETIM is said to be linked to al-Qa'ida and the international mujahedin movement. In September 2002 the group was designated by the US Government under EO 13224 as a supporter of terrorist activity. E.O. 13224 targets terrorists and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism by freezing the assets of designated persons and prohibiting transactions with them. On 12 September 2002 the United Nations has added to its list of terrorists and terrorist supporters associated with Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is the most militant of the ethnic Uighur separatist groups pursuing an independent "Eastern Turkistan". A US Government website states that this would be "an area that would include Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China" but this sounds more like a restored Caliphate than Eastern Turkistan.

But no group calling itself ETIM claimed responsibility for violent incidents in the 1990s. While many Uighur or East Turkistan groups have been reported for decades, the first apparent mention of ETIM was in 2000. A Russian press report in August 2000 claimed that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had provided military and material assistance to ETIM in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. This Russian newspaper reported that Osama bin Laden had convened a meeting in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 1999 that included the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and ETIM at which he agreed to give them money.

The Chinese Government reported in 2002 that in February 1998, Hasan Mahsum, ringleader of the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement" abroad, sent "scores of terrorists" into China. They were reported to have established about a dozen training bases in Xinjiang and inland regions and trained more than 150 terrorists in 15 training classes. In addition, they were reported to have set up large numbers of training stations in scattered areas, each of them composed of three to five members, and some of them being also workshops for making weapons, ammunition and explosive devices. The Xinjiang police were said to have uncovered many of these underground training stations and workshops, and confiscated large numbers of antitank grenades, hand-grenades, detonators, guns and ammunition.

In 2002 one western journalist interviewed the ETIM leader, Hasan Mahsum, in Pakistan. Mahsum asserted that ETIM had not received assistance from Al Qaeda and had no intention of targeting American interests. On 02 October 2003, Pakistani soldiers killed ETIM leader Hassan Makhsum and others during raids on al-Qa'ida-associated compounds in South Waziristan in western Pakistan. Some observers have suggested that ETIM effectively ceased to exist after Mahsum was killed, since it was said that nothing was heard subsequently of the organization outside of Chinese government sources.

In December 2003, the leadership of of TIP (having changed its name from ETIP in 1999 to be inclusive of non-Uighur Turkic peoples) posted on the Internet an eulogy of Mahsum. The leadership of TIP announced that former Military Affairs Commander Abdul Haq, aka Maimaitiming Maimaiti, had taken over as the overall leader and commander of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a.k.a. the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). As TIP overall leader, Abdul Haq raised funds, recruited new members and further developed the terrorist organization. As of 2005, Haq was also a member of al Qaida's Shura Council.

The US Government reports that ETIM militants fought alongside al-Qa'ida and Taliban forces in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. US and Chinese Government information suggests ETIM is responsible for various terrorist acts inside and outside China. In May 2002, two ETIM members were deported to China from Kyrgyzstan for plotting to attack the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan as well as other US interests abroad. ETIM has received training and financial assistance from al-Qa'ida.

The US Government reports that ETIM had a close financial relationship with al-Qaida and many of its members' received terrorist training in Afghanistan, financed by al-Qaida and the Taliban. A number of ETIM and ETIM-linked militants were captured in Afghanistan last fall fighting alongside al-Qaida and the Taliban. A July 2002 report from the Hong Kong press quoted captured militants as saying ETIM leaders still worked with Usama bin Laden.

ETIM is said to also have a history of cooperation with other militant Islamic organizations in Central Asia including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an al-Qaida linked organization previously designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, under President Bush's Executive Order 13224, and included in the United Nations' list of al-Qaida linked terrorists and supporters.

Although ETIM did not originally target U.S. nationals, by late 2002 the US Government reported that there was evidence indicating that ETIM members had been taking steps to plan attacks against U.S. interests and nationals abroad, including the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. On May 22, 2002, two suspected ETIM members were deported to China from Kyrgyzstan on the grounds that they were planning terrorist attacks. The Kyrgyz government stated that the two men were planning to target embassies in Bishkek as well as trade centers and public gathering places.

When China destroyed an Islamist camp in Xinjiang in January 2007, killing 18 suspected terrorists and capturing 17 others, a police spokeswoman said the training camp was run by ETIM.

Despite a series of violent incidents and threats leading up to the August 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Games were held successfully without terrorist incidents. Starting in June 2008, representatives of a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) posted videos on the Internet taking credit for violent incidents in China and threatening to strike the Olympic Games. TIP is said to be an another name for the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), also known as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Among the incidents TIP took credit for was a series of bus bombings in Kunming, Yunnan Province that killed two people in July 2008. In March, the Chinese government claimed that flight attendants foiled a plot to detonate a homemade explosive on a flight from Urumqi, Xinjiang to Beijing by subduing a female passenger. The Turkistan Islamic Party has begun publishing a journal, which is modeled on publications of othermore established Jihadist groups.

The US Government reports that it continued to receive information indicating that terrorist groups may be planning attacks, possibly against U.S. interests, in Uzbekistan and Central Asia in general. Supporters of terrorist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al-Qa'ida, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement are thought to be active in the region.

When the United States recognized ETIM as a terrorist group with ties to Al Qaeda in 2002, few scholars studying the Uyghur people had ever heard of this group. But recognizing ETIM as a terrorist group directly led to the imprisonment of twenty-two Uyghurs in the Guantanamo detention facilities for between five and seven years. The US Administration conceded in 2008 that all of the Uighur detainees were "no longer enemy combatants." But the United States would not send them to China, where they fear persecution, torture, and/or execution. Uighurs at Guantanamo testified that they were trained by none other than Abdul Haq, who was the one responsible for the camp.

On April 20, 2009 the U.S. Department of the Treasury targeted al Qaida's support network by designating Abdul Haq, the overall leader and commander of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP). This Treasury action followed a decision by the United Nations Security Council's 1267 Committee to place Haq on its list of persons associated with Usama bin Laden, al Qaida, or the Taliban and subject to sanctions by UN member states. "Abdul Haq commands a terror group that sought to sow violence and fracture international unity at the 2008 Olympic Games in China," said Stuart Levey, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Today, we stand together with the world in condemning this brutal terrorist and isolating him from the international financial system." Since late 2007, Abdul Haq sent terrorists to the Middle East to raise funds and buy explosive materials for terrorist attacks against Chinese targets outside China. In early January 2008, Haq directed ETIP's military commander to attack various Chinese cities, particularly focusing on the cities holding the Olympic Games. Under Haq, trained terrorists planned to sabotage the Olympic Games by conducting terrorist attacks within China before the Olympics began.

My point was that I don't like defining down concepts like torture. Water tricks in extreme, isolated situations, underwear photos gone bad, and sleep schedule changes are not comparable to gradual electrocutions or eyes gouged out. We are not morally equal to those who maximize the number of innocent casualties and kill themselves. And we did not plan or participate in the most gruesome attack ever against us - and keep it all a secret for 10 years. That doesn't make any sense.

I don't think cruel and unusual punishment should be delivered to anyone, including supposed terrorists. I don't like it because the state will always be doing something worse than what's allowed to people they shouldn't be touching in the first place. First they will torture Arabs, next it will be us. I have no faith in the compassion, decency or wisdom of the people we give power and I think they need to be as tightly controlled as possible with as few avenues for harming innocents as possible.

As far as the attack on us not making sense, to each their own. I think it makes a lot of sense.

The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.

February 01, 2009|Greg Miller

The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

That clarification took too many days and too many questions. It's interesting you made this point with the article you did, and mentioned "outlaw biker gangs" in a prior "rebuttal" when you didn't mean domestic actions in the U.S.

That clarification took too many days and too many questions. It's interesting you made this point with the article you did, and mentioned "outlaw biker gangs" in a prior "rebuttal" when you didn't mean domestic actions in the U.S.

"That clarification took too many days and too many questions. It's interesting you made this point with the article you did, and mentioned "outlaw biker gangs" in a prior "rebuttal" when you didn't mean domestic actions in the U.S."

I try to explain things in a manner that might make sense to someone who thinks that war is like a stickfighting contest where you are friends at the end of the day.

I think the essential point is the aspect of civilizational confidence found in China and the lack thereof here best exemplified by someone who thinks we blew up the WTC. Wars are ultimately won or lost based on mindset. You can have the best military systems on the planet, but if you are too soft to pull the trigger, it's of no use.

Put that way, we are in agreement but if I may, I think you need to appreciate that that you started out by giving the distinct impression that we should do things domestically the way the Chinese do. I trust we are in agreement that there is/was/can be an American Creed approach to civilizational confidence from which the Chinese model differs quite a bit-- yes?

As I pointed out, there was once a time where Americans had civilizational confidence, of course that was before the marxists infiltrated academia and the media. Now we have a large number of self-hating loons that think America is evil, of course they'd never leave this country and still expect it's protections while they work to undercut the nation from within.

As I pointed out, there was once a time where Americans had civilizational confidence, of course that was before the marxists infiltrated academia and the media. Now we have a large number of self-hating loons that think America is evil, of course they'd never leave this country and still expect it's protections while they work to undercut the nation from within.

The CCP long ago abandoned communistic "worker's paradise" slogans. They instead play upon Chinese nationalism and the wrongs the middle kingdom has suffered and the theme of China returning to it's rightful place as the asian and eventually the world's superpower. From the lowest street sweeper to the highest ranks of the CCP, they are unashamedly trying to figure out how to get rich or richer.

I also am not sure what led you to ask this question. I have no problem fighting to win a war, GM. I do have a problem with ignoring the rights of Americans, by Americans, on American soil. See the discussion of the BOR's I asked you about above. If you will recall, by questions about UBL's killing was not about the military personnel, it was about your favorite target, President Obama. The difference here is mostly that I respect the office enough to call him by his title, and not take liberty with his name.

Also, nearly everytime we've gone a few rounds, my issue has had to do with domestic agents (or the possibility of domestic action) taking liberties, that are spelled out in the Constitution, from the citizens of the United States.

Would it be the same if the SEALs did a similar op in Mexico or Canada? What if the target was a US citizen like Anwar al-Awlaki? What if a group of jihadists had infiltrated into the US who were US citizens and were heavily armed and enroute to a mass casualty operation and a nearby SEAL team was available to intercept and engage? The US military can engage in military ops domestically, right?

No, these aren't easy questions, but they are real issues.

I'm pretty sure China would never invite a ETIM imam to lunch at a PLA headquarters, unless he were gagged, hooded and cuffed and lunch was served in a cell.

Despite connections to some of the hijackers and a record of radical sermons and speeches in the United States, fugitive al-Qaida terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki was a lunch guest at a Pentagon "Muslim outreach" event just months after the 9/11 attacks, according to documents obtained by Fox News.

A current Defense Department (DoD) employee told investigators that she helped arrange the meeting after watching Awlaki speak in Alexandria, Va.

In the aftermath of 9/11, there was a push by the Secretary of the Army "to have a presentation from a moderate Muslim," according to one document. Awlaki was also "considered to be an 'up and coming' member of the Muslim community."

After watching Awlaki's speech, the employee "recalls being impressed by this imam. He condemned Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks," according to the documents. And Awlaki was "harassed" by members of the audience and "suffered it well."

"After her vetting, Aulaqi [Awlaki] was invited to and attended a luncheon in the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army's Office of General Counsel."

The invitation came despite the fact that Awlaki "was interviewed at least four times by the FBI in the first week after the attacks because of his ties to…three hijackers – Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour," Fox News reported. The three hijackers were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

The Defense Department has failed to respond to Fox News' repeated requests for information on Awlaki's attendance at the luncheon. A former high-ranking FBI agent told Fox News that there was tremendous "arrogance" about the Pentagon's vetting process.

"They vetted people politically and showed indifference to security and intelligence advice of others," the agent said. It wasn't just the Pentagon. As we reported in July, Awlaki is shown in a PBS documentary leading Muslim staffers in prayer on Capitol Hill.

China’s nationalism today is shaped by its pride in its history as well as its century of humiliation at the hands of the West and Japan. China expert Peter Hays Gries writes: (PDF) “Chinese nationalists today find pride in stories about the superiority of China’s ‘5000 years’ of ‘glorious civilization.’” This yearning for lost glory is accompanied by the story of victimization in the past, a narrative central to what being Chinese today means, says Gries. China perceives itself as a victim of Western imperialism that began with the First Opium War and the British acquisition of Hong Kong in 1842 and lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, during which it suffered humiliating losses of sovereignty.

“Chinese nationalism was actually partly a creation of Western imperialism,” says Minxin Pei, a senior associate in the China program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pei says the first surge of Chinese nationalism was seen in 1919 in what’s now widely referred to as the May 4th Movement when thousands of students demonstrated against the Treaty of Versailles’ transfer of Chinese territory to Japan. Some of these student leaders went on to form the Chinese Communist Party two years later in 1921. “The current Chinese communist government is more a product of nationalism than a product of ideology like Marxism and Communism,” says Liu Kang, a professor of Chinese cultural studies at Duke University. Kang says today nationalism has probably “become the most powerful legitimating ideology.”

“The current Chinese communist government is more a product of nationalism than a product of ideology like Marxism and Communism.” —Liu Kang, Duke University

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the opening up of the Chinese economy by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, and the pro-democracy protests of 1989, nationalism was once again revived by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), say experts. Gries writes: “Lacking the procedural legitimacy accorded to democratically elected governments and facing the collapse of communist ideology, the CCP is increasingly dependent upon its nationalist credentials to rule.” As the International Herald Tribune noted in an April 2008 editorial, stripped of Maoism as its guiding light, the CCP frequently has fallen back on nationalism as societal glue.

Beyond the party’s control, the emergence of the Internet in the last two decades has given nationalists more power to vent their anger after particular incidents. It has also brought the huge Chinese diaspora in places like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Europe, and North America, into closer contact with those residing within China’s borders, facilitating an easy flow of information. “It makes it much easier for the nationalistic rhetoric,” says Pei. He says the young, urban, and educated Chinese are more nationalistic and they are the ones using the Internet. “Compared to before, the Internet has democratized opinion but this democratization of opinion is not evenly distributed and the fringe elements tend to exploit this new opportunity far more actively than the mainstream,” Pei says.

So, the Bush administration is to blame for the terrorist dining in the Pentagon?

I don't understand the point of the nationalism article you posted. It doesn't refute the idea of Marxism. You can have Marxist nationalists.

Are Mexico and Canada part of the US? If not, why would you think I meant to exclude them?I do not approve of the United States assassinating (or just regular murdering) its own citizens.It depends on the SEAL team's current situation. If it needed to deploy, I'm not sure why a SWAT team couldn't be deployed instead (unless a Fort Hood type attack). If it reacted informally, like the Marines did in the recent story that made its rounds on the internet, where they apprehended a shop lifter.

I'd like to see you discuss Guro's question about the cultural differences between China and the US. No more question dodging just by asking more questions!

So, the Bush administration is to blame for the terrorist dining in the Pentagon?

*Sure. Good thing Obama has reversed all those policies, right? I mean there is no way political correctness would prevent the US Army from taking action on an officer who was emailing al-Awlaki about jihad, right?

I don't understand the point of the nationalism article you posted. It doesn't refute the idea of Marxism. You can have Marxist nationalists.

*In the case of China, as I stated before it does. I posted it to backstop my assertions on that point. Not even communist party members believe in communism in China. They try to use their party connections to leverage themselves into business deals, some legal, some not. The CCP is like some classic rock bands where all the original members have died, retired and a whole other group is touring under the same name. The CCP is about maintaing power, but their motivation is self interest, not a glorious worker's paradise. My point, related to cultural confidence and China is the best educated and affluent young people there are also very supportive of the rise of an aggressive and dominant China. They might listen to American pop on their Ipods, eat at McDonalds and wear western clothes, but they have no problem with the PLA nuking a US carrier group so Taiwan can be invaded.

Are Mexico and Canada part of the US? If not, why would you think I meant to exclude them?

I do not approve of the United States assassinating (or just regular murdering) its own citizens.

*We are trying hard to whack al-Awlaki, who of course is a native born US citizen (and has a really nice CV, by the way).Do you object to that?

It depends on the SEAL team's current situation. If it needed to deploy, I'm not sure why a SWAT team couldn't be deployed instead (unless a Fort Hood type attack).

*Not all tactical teams are created equally. That includes experience, training and equipment. There are certain scenarios, like an "upgraded Beslan" type where explosive breaching would be vital for there to be any realistic chance of rescuing any of the hostages. If I recall correctly, the plan with the NEST (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams) scientists would have SEAL/Delta operatives to secure the nuclear devices before they went in to disarm it.

If it reacted informally, like the Marines did in the recent story that made its rounds on the internet, where they apprehended a shop lifter.

*I'm not advocating that we have the military intrude into conventional civillian law enforcement, but we are at war and just as the current plan in place if we have a hijacking of a aircraft is that military aircraft will shoot it down if control is not regained. Obviously, that's a worst case scenario, but a realistic one.

I'd like to see you discuss Guro's question about the cultural differences between China and the US. No more question dodging just by asking more questions!

GM, we Jews have a tradition of answering questions with questions. You are now under serious consideration for being nominated to the status of "honorary Jew"

This is a nice way of saying you are still ducking the question.

==============

Just saw your post #148.

Still remaining is that somehow you continuously give the impression to people of above average IQ, above average education, above average reading skills, and greatly overlapping POVs that you are advocating that we do things in the US the Chinese way or some analog thereof. Why is that?